Package Design II: Step-by-Step Execution

1. Trailer: In this series of classes, you're going to learn all about package design. In class view, I'm going to show you how designs come together starting with how I work with clients, formulate plans and directions, design on screen, and ultimately, develop clear package designs ready for the marketplace. I'm Trina, and I'm the one who will be leading you throughout this. I've been working as a designer for the past 15 years. I helped build brands and create products for clients like these. I absolutely love package design. You have to figure out how to enter even number of design elements into a really tight, crafted, well-considered space. I also love how package design is all about competition. There's no other format that allows you to stack up products all side-by-side, and asks the buyer to make a split-second decision based off of impact. So much of that impact is dependent on design. To me, that is really, really exciting. I hope you'll join me in learning more about how to design for the package. 3. Prework: So, we have finally made it to the fun part. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Welcome to class number three on designing the actual package, which is of course, my favorite part of the entire process. So, I thought it would be good just to recap a little bit from class number one, the introduction. So, we want to be really mindful of our main goals in package design. So, the things we're going to be focusing on are really making sure we're communicating clearly; and second, that we're producing designs that are really going to pop off the shelf and really command that attention. So, we're going to have to deal with a lot of other things when we're designing. But no matter what, we always want to keep these two main goals at the forefront. All right. So, before we can get into the fun part of designing, we've got to make sure that we've done all of our homework before we can dive in. So, this is all the pre-work. All of the information on the client themselves, their market, their competition, all of that fun stuff. So, before I'm getting into design, I'm obviously starting here. It normally takes form in like a client meeting or discovery session with the client. So, sometimes, they're handing me over a nice brand brief, which is fantastic, and that's normally covering everything from who they are as a company, their background, who their audience is, who their competition is, where they fall amongst their competition, what their core values are. So, if I'm not getting that information all packaged nicely from them, I'm obviously having to do a little bit of work to get that information from them. So, and beyond that, I'm always asking questions. I'm always coming to these meetings armed and prepared. So, some of the questions I may ask are like, is there a story behind the product? Why was the product even created in the first place? Just like you get indepth into their brains and see if there's a story that we can pull out of it. If a buyer only looks at the product for like a split second, what message do you want to make sure they get? So, this is like a backward way of asking them what's the most important thing on the package, but I think framing it this way gives you the answer that you want. Their answer is being completely highlighted in the design of the package ultimately. So, how should the package make you feel? Tell me in three words. I love this question. Getting away from the nitty gritty information and just, what should be the emotional connection to it? Why would someone buy your product over the competition? What are your main differentiators? Again, the answers to these are things that I'm pulling and making prominent whenever I'm designing. So, here's a design checklist. These are all the items that I'm normally making sure I have before I can even start sketching, before I can start work at all. So, the first ones are, like I said, normally covered in a brand brief, basic company background, information on the audience in the market, who that person is, if there are different markets, I want to know about the different ones obviously. So, information on all their competitors. I'm always asking my clients to pull visual inspiration, and I'm normally telling them that they can take that really literally. Meaning, they can pull other package designs or they can pull completely random things as well. I've had people give me pieces of fabric or a bag and tell me that that's their inspiration, and I get that. I just want some insight into their head and where they're at visually, what they naturally gravitate toward? I find that a lot of clients can't put into words exactly what they like. However, if they can show me just like a handful of items, I can pick up on these visual cues, and it gives me some insight into where their brains are. Then, see it as my job to bring my head to where they're naturally at and to give them options centered around that direction. I found asking point blank for inspiration, that's made a huge difference in my ability to really get designs that are on the money for them. So, I think it's key just to get as much insight as you can. So, I'm also needing to know where the product's live at in the store. Sometimes, or I would say most of the times, they're just living in one area, but I've done projects too where they live in a couple of areas. Like for a chip, they might live in the deli section and the chip aisle. It might be different at different stores. So, you want to know that so that, as a part of the next step, when we go to the grocery store and look at those sections that you're just observing it in the right space. I also want to know how the shopper is actually looking for it. So, let's say, you've got a product and it's in the freezer section on the bottom shelf or the second the bottom shelf, that tells me that I need to place any priority information at the top of that package. You want to make sure you understand how the buyers going to interact with the product, so that you're setting up the design for success. So, I'm wanting the exact information for the main principle display panel of the package, and I'm asking this in order of priority. So, what I normally get as a deliverable, the clients normally sending me all the texts and tidbits that need to go on that front. So, I'm telling them to give me everything from the brand name to the product name, to the flavor, to the claims, all the way down to exactly what the net weight should be. I want every single piece of information that needs to be on the front of that package. Then, asking them to give it to me in order of priority because I want to know what's the most important. If I'm working on a design that's more streamlined and minimal and they've got a list of, let's say, eight claims, then I'm going to leave off the bottom four and I'm going to make that executive decision at least for design purposes in the first round. So, yeah, getting them in order of priority I think it's really important. I'm also asking them what certification should be included? Do we need USDA organic? Do we need a non-GMO? I need to know these things so I can account for them whenever I'm designing. Do we need a product window? If yes, where does the fill line falls? So, the fill line is just when they load up the product into, say, a pouched style bag, it's just where the product ends. We covered that in class number two. So, if you need more information, you can go back there. Then, I'm asking them point blank, if there's not a product window, do I have to show the product, or is it a must? I want to gauge where they're at. Could we take it in a completely abstract direction? Are they open to that? The last thing I want to really have a good sense of is just how the product is going to expand. Are we working on one product now, but eventually they're going to be three additional flavors? If that's the case, I'm very much designing with that flavor expansion in mind and making sure we have a really, really clear flavor differentiation area, or is it going to extend to different product lines? For example on that, is this a dairy version and then they're going to have a non-dairy version? So, do we need to break up the products like that? So, just getting a real good sense of the product line as a whole, I think it's really important because you want to have those things in mind when you're doing your initial design. So, after I have all of these items checked off my list, then it's my time to get to work. The next step in all of this is putting together a plan of action. 4. Planning & Sketching: So, after we have all of that information from the client, it's our turn to get to work, and I'm always starting with kind of developing a plan. This plan normally entails I'm going to the grocery store and studying the shelf space, and me pulling inspiration, and then finally ending in sketching and kind of determining what directions I'm going to move in. So, the first part of any project is I'm only going to the grocery store, I'm just kind of standing back from the shelf space where they're going to live. When I'm looking at kind of the products on the shelf, I'm looking for a few things. I'm looking for like common threads of elements that these brands use. Do they use common colors? Do they use kind of similar topography? I'm looking for those kind of threads. Then I'm also looking and analyzing like, how could I potentially get attention on the shelf space? What can I do to really really stand out and make a product pop? Is everybody in this color-filled so I'm going to pick another color palette that makes sense? So I'm looking for those types of things. Normally, my goal in design is that I want to deliver kind of brands that feel like what the product is. So if it's a granola company, I want the product to fill like granola so that it feels familiar for the consumer. But yet on the flip side of things, I wanted to fill really different in that shelf space, so that it can really jump out at the buyer and get them interested in what the product is. So, the next part of the planning stage for me is pulling my own inspiration. So, I've already asked the client for inspiration and I've kind of gotten into their head that way, but I'm also pulling inspiration on my own of course. I'm looking for this on blogs, on Pinterest and really what I'm looking for are other brands that I think this client's market might be into and I'm also looking for things that just inspire me. Different types of the way they have shown ingredients here and that's bird's eye view and kind of layering of the typography really interests me. All these hand-drawn fonts interests me. So, I'm just looking for things that I'm inspired by that can get my creative juices flowing for the next step, which for me is sketching. So, I normally start out all of my sketches with kind these brainstorm lists. So, in this case, the company was a superfoods company, and they really wanted to communicate science as superfood and like plant and the source, so where the superfood or where the product actually came from or was sourced from. So, I'm starting out, I'm just making a brainstorm list of what can I do visually to communicate those different messages. Hopefully, some words on that list start to steer my design directions. So after I make this kind of really, really refer list, I'm moving into just rough sketches. I'm not very artistic as far as the way I draw, and so my sketches are really, really rough. It's more about just like getting a layout blocked in and then putting a lot of words next to it that kind of define that path and that vision. As to when I'm sketching, the main things that I'm focusing on are just an overall direction like what's going to be the main point of that design. Is it going to be an image? Is it going to be a product image? Is it going to be a pattern? Then I'm also really making sure I'm kind of defining where the flavor differentiator will be. Is it a tab sort of thing? Is it a tab that wraps around the side? Is it a big band? I'm also always looking for product window shape if that's playing into what I'm working on. Is it a square? Is it a circle? How does that play out? So, those are kind of different elements I'm sketching with. So, I do kind of page after page of different sketches. Whenever I'm sketching, I'm pulling from my original inspirations. I'm pulling obviously from the client's inspirations, and I'm pulling from that brainstorm list than I started with. After I sketch, I just go back through, and I'm starting to look at different things that I've written per option, and then I start to assign numbers to them, so here you see, a 1, a 2, a 3. What I'm doing here is I'm just lining out the different directions that I'm going to move in. So, in this case, I knew option one I was going to do black and white photography, and I was going to have like a pop of color in this like flavor profile area. So, option two here, I knew I was going use botanicals. I knew that I was maybe going to do them large, maybe they would kind of fall off the edge of the box, and maybe kind of lay underneath this flavor differentiator band. Then I thought maybe when you turn this side of the corner maybe you'd get like a pop color or some sort of graphic or pattern or something here. So, in defining really clearly these different directions that I'm going to move in, I'm just setting clear paths for my work, can i find this to be really really helpful. You want to kind of establish really clear directions from the beginning, so that when you get to the end, all of your options don't like mixed together. You want your options to be just really diverse and really distinct in their own ways. So, the next part that we're going to be getting into is actually getting started on the computer screen. 7. Getting to Work: So, up next, we're actually going to be getting to work. So, I'm going to kind of walk you through my process and what I do and how I turn those sketches in this original directions into designs that happen on the screen. So, the first part of me kind of getting to work on the screen is I really need to work on the actual product and the actual format of packaging. So, I find that for me it doesn't work to like work on a flat dye or to say measure out the space of the package and to kind of design in this flat field, I need to actually design on top of the package I think the format and the shape really greatly influences design. So, I think that's really important. And so, I've got a pretty generic pouch rendering. That's just white and super easy to kind of work on top of and this was a product that I did. These were a line of supplements and I had the client sent me the jar so that I could shoot it. All I did was I cut out a piece of white paper, wrapped around where the label would go, shot it and brought again so that I can work directly on top of it or if you have like a clear bottle, like in this case, it was the alcohol bottle. You really want to know the exact color of the product going inside. Those colors really, really affect design both for like the product color and that jar color here. You want those like in your visual space when you're designing so that you can create designs that kind of show the product off at its best. Kind of the last thing over here is if you've got a product window, you need to work with the actual product. You really just can't block in like a grey area of where the window would be. I find that it's really helpful to have shots of the actual product there so that again my design is kind of showing that product off at its best. For these, I'm just getting the product from the client, I'm sticking them in a bowl, I'm like shooting it from above like an a bird's eye view and I'm bringing a man and I'm kind of cropping them to whatever the product window would be. Next, I'm opening up an Illustrator file and I'm just getting the process started. So, normally I start by just kind of getting all the stuff that needs to go on this principle display panel on my screen. So, I've got kind of my package right here. This is the exact space that I'm going to be working with. In this case, I'm just going to be working with a really really flat box front. So, the rendering here is pretty flat. Then I'm dropping all the content that I received from my client in an order of highest priority to least priority. I also have all my certifications pooled and ready to go, so that I can work with them and make sure they have a good place in a design and I've got my product window pulled again so that I can make sure that everything I design is going to really kind of showcase this product in the best way possible. And I've got my logo too. So, a lot of times when I'm working with a kind of new package design, I'm also developing the logo at the same time. I like to group the study altogether like I find that logo and package design that they really, really go hand in hand. So, for me personally, I like to show my clients that whole kind of brand study together as one rather than dividing it up and showing them all logos first and then taking the winner of the logos and taking it into the package design I just like to focus on the big picture. And so, when working like it's always a chicken and egg scenario whether I design the logo first or the package design first. I do it both ways. Sometimes, I'll do a logo and that will feed the package design. Other times, I'll have like a complete package design in place and I'll more like be designing a logo that will work well with that package design. So, for me, I just keep it flexible and whatever works best for that option is what I do. So, after I've kind of got all the stuff on the screen, I'm going to my sketches and I'm going to those options that I lined out and I'm figuring out the best place to start. For me, I normally start with the option that I think it's going the easiest and that I kind of see the most like I want to start off on a really good foot, so yeah, I'm just starting with the one that I think that's going to be kind of easiest to knock out. For me, in this case, it was the black and white photography option with like a pop of color. So, I'm going to just kind of show you how I would start to lay out that box front. So, I've already got like my stock image pulled. This stock image obviously is relating to the source of where this Ceylon red rice might have come from. It's a black and white of some rice fields here. And I'm keeping this in mind like this black and white photo would change from product to product, it would always kind of be shifting. So, I'm keeping that entire flavor line in mind whenever I'm determining the direction here. Okay. So, I see these black and white images. I saw them in my head as being really kind of large and kind of taking up the entire background. I'll go ahead and move my logo into place here. I'm not sure if that's exactly where it's going to go but it feels good right now. Let's go ahead and get my certifications in place. Dealing with the certifications, they're always, they're a bit pesky. I know that they're going to go on the bottom because they're obviously not highest priority. For me, they're not really going to probably work layered on top of the image. Again, if I'm thinking of this entire flavor line, you can imagine these images in the background, they're going to have all a variety of different kind of grays. Some might be dark down here. Some might be light. So rather than having that inconsistency and these guys just laying on top of that image, I'm thinking it's going to be best to maybe put them in a white band back here to just keep it clean and to make sure that this design that I'm setting forth is going to translate super nicely from different flavors and different product lines too. So, another thing that I'm always doing with these certifications, is I think it's good to kind of group them together visually in the same space. Rather than spreading them out, I like the idea that they're grouped together and I only has to go to that one spot rather than dispersing them all throughout the package and I'm being frantic and going all over the place. So, I'm normally just grouping these together. Go ahead and get my net weight on here because I knew that but that's going to go on the bottom. I'm always using like a really condensed font for my net weight because that enables you to kind of make the font not appear so huge down there. I'm making sure that it's at a good size, at the accurate size for the box front. So, when I'm looking at kind of all my information and figuring out how I'm going to put it on the box, I'm of course thinking about priority and the strategy of communication. So, I've already got my central living foods. I got my brand name on there so, that's great. It's at the top. Even though it's not crazy huge, it's still getting priority by just being placed at the top. My product name is going to be really, really important. So, I get that over here and I'm also looking at, what goes with the product name. These are both descriptors for the product; heirloom and traditional high fiber nutrition. So, I want to group those call-outs right by the name that makes sense that you would read those altogether, so that you associate them altogether and then I've already done that weight and this 100% recycled, to me, it just kind of relates to all of this information down here. We've even got this recycled if they wanted the additional call out for recycled as well. So, I'm going to group like items together so that your eye just has these areas to land on to take in the information. So, when I'm coming back to this site to how all the product information is going to shake out, I'm always thinking at how we're going to get flavor differentiation from one product to the other. So, normally, that takes shape in the form of some sort of color block or ban it doesn't have to be that but that's traditionally a good go to for sure. Of course, on this one, we're also going to get flavor differentiation. I would see all these black and whites being different from product to product but one thing I've found is you've got to make flavor differentiation super obvious for a consumer. They don't want to think of anything. They just want it to be really, really clear. So, a pop of color is going to do that really well. So, I'm probably thinking of laying out this product specific information in this color flavor profile area. That makes a lot of sense to me. When I'm picking this kind of flavor color, I know it's going to be associated or it's probably going to fall next to the product itself. So, there's a few things when I'm thinking about color. Like one is, how does it go with the product? How's it going to enhance the product? So, sometimes I'm actually sampling colors from the product itself to see if there's any good matches. Another thing that I'm thinking of is like looking at the product name, is their color that makes sense with Ceylon red rice? And maybe a reddish color makes sense. That probably would be a good direction to go to. Some ingredients make you really, really think of specific colors and others don't at all. Another thing that I'm bearing in mind it's just like where do I see this entire brand going? What are the tone of colors? Are they really like bright pops? Are they more earthy colors? When you're setting up these designs, you want all the flavor colors to kind of feel like a good family together. So, you're kind of picking things that are a little bit in the same tone and so they all relate. For me on this one, I think I like this like reddish kind of brown color. It makes sense. It's going to look great with the product and so I'm going to do that for right now. So, I know you know my product name is the most important, so I need to get it up and size, it's more important than these call-outs around it. So, I'm obviously giving it priority just by making it a lot bigger. I make these guys a little bit smaller so that again, my product name it's going to pop a little bit more. You do you want to be careful when you're sizing things though. This is a 10-point point which were probably good there. The consumer is always going to be standing back from the shelf. Hopefully, they're picking it up and reading it. But you do want to make sure that things are large enough to read from a couple of feedback, or at least to get the main points from that. So, go ahead and drop-in where I think a product window might go on this design. Okay. So, you start to see how our design starts to take shape. So, generally, the way I work is I start getting something that looks sort of okay. I work in this copy and paste type of method. So, I'm copying another whenever and then I'm just exploring more. Maybe they'll gets this stamp in the background that relates to the source. I think my rice paddies are getting a little bit lost in the background there, and I think I had too much white space at the top. So, maybe this image is getting bigger in the background. Maybe like I'm probably starting to explore this 100 percent recycled a bit more. It doesn't feel quite like it's belonging yet, it fills a little too large to me. So, I'm working on all these details. So, as I continue this copy and paste type method, my art board start to look like this. This is one option that I'm exploring all of these different ways that can maybe shake out. Starting here, or maybe the flavor profile is in white with just this denoting flavor, and maybe this is more of a horizontal cut out. Or maybe the arrangement completely chefs and you're getting your color flavor profile area at the bottom, with the window further up. You see that I'm also like exploring flavors like side-by-side. I like to see how those are going to start to line out on a shelf so I can get a more a larger picture at the entire brand. So, then I'm creating new options. This one I like the idea of doing patterns that kind of related to where these products were from, so you're seeing how I look at that concept. In these concepts together like they start, just overtaking my art board and you see that I start getting these clusters. Here's the black and white option. here's the pattern option, here's that botanical option that I talked about, here's a sciency type of direction that I was working on. So, they just keep expanding and I keep just going off on different tangents. Then, from here, I'm normally developing like maybe two art boards that look like this. I normally find one kind of just gets too crazy and busy, so then I'm going to another art board altogether. Then, for the concept presentation, I'm obviously editing this down and going back into these variations, and just picking out what works best. I think working in this like copy and paste method does for me, is that it allows me to compare the different variations like side-by-side, and it makes me able to make an educated decision based off of on looking at those and see what's working and what's not. I also like working in this copy and paste method because I feel like it gives me really freedom to explore. So, like every time I copy and paste, I always have this fallback plans, so that if I mess up the one I just pasted, I can always go back to the one I was just working on. So, I think you need that freedom to explore, so that's why I do that. So, after I edited it all down and this is what the concept presentation look like. So, these are the actual presentations I'm delivering to the client, and to just explore different ways that we can take their brand. Of course, I'm showing the package fret and normally how it translates into another flavor. But normally, I'm telling them that this is about the entire brand as a whole. So, it's more about picking a brand and feeling in a vibe that we're going to continue with through the entire brand. The package is more just the way that we're showing that brand. So, here's that black and white option. Here is the final way that ended up finally working for me. I did another option that have this tribal type graphic to it. Here is that pattern direction, my thought here is that from flavor to flavor, you would get these different patterns and always be two color, and the patterns would relate to the product. So, we've got an asset pattern for the chia seeds, there's a jungly type of pattern for jungle peanuts, so that was the idea there. Here's the botanical option. Again, just as I plan, using the botanicals then wrapping around the edge, and having a really clean flavor profile tab like area. Sometimes like this might be the side of the box, sometimes I see that, and I like to include that in the presentation. I like the idea that whenever you go from the slate clean white front, that maybe there's this top of color on the side. Distraction just related to source, maybe looking at where the country they are from, and using this as big iconic graphics, and the packaging and then layering like bold bright colors with it. Another kind of botanical option but maybe they're all black and whites than this, the packaging front is a little bit more sciency like. This direction related to source as well, so this when I was maybe looking at pulling in a map into the background and maybe we circle exactly where that product is sourced from, and where we're making a tie between that place on the map and the actual product itself. Maybe you get a tidbit of information about that source on the front as well. So, this is the final design of a client ended up going with. Of course, they picked two concepts from the concept presentation and marry them together. But I think it completely worked. I extended this line to about, I think, it was between 40 and 50 skews. So, you see how the design translates on these boxes across a number of flavors. We've got really obvious flavor differentiation here, so not only the botanical change but we also get this really dominant flavor profile bands that goes right through the middle, and how that design translated on canisters. Then, we also take it to a different product line altogether where we got like some background color. So, you can see that it still feels like it's a part of the same brand but it's a different product line. We're not using the white backgrounds, were more using this color background, so you get a shift but they all come together, still it's like a nice family. So, this was for a line of supplements, and these are the boxes and then these are the stick packs inside. I'm so hopefully that kind of gives you an idea of how I work and how the packaging design process actually happens. In the next lesson here and the final lesson, I'm just going to give you some design tips of what I found to be really helpful when I'm working with package design. 9. Design Tips: Welcome to our last lesson here on Package Design. So we just wrapped up saying exactly how things play out on the computer, and I just wanted to end by giving you some tips that I've found helpful in the design process. So, when I'm moving through all of these options on the screen, I'm of course using all of my design know-how and all of my basics. So, balance proportion, typography and use of space and all of these basics are definitely coming to play when I'm working on packaging design. However, I think packaging design, it also has its own unique set of challenges and it has its own really, really specific goals. Still, in this lesson, I'm just going to call out some of those and hopefully give you tips on each one of them. So, the first one of these is we've got to communicate clearly. We've talked about this multiple times throughout the lesson but I'm going to talk about it one last time here. So, in order to communicate clearly, some tips around that, are really think about how the eye is going to go through the design. Make sure you're leading it, make sure you're starting with this and really key elements that somebody needs to get in a glass and then that you're leading them through the other information too in order of priority, from most important to least important. You are also going to create this priority by using scale and by using visual weight. If everything in a layout is of the same size and the same weight, that's when things will really busy and your eye doesn't know where to go. You want some things that are really large, you want some things that are smaller, you want things that are bold, some that are lighter so you can create this nice texture in the layouts and your eye just knows where to go and what points to hit. You also want to use some clear space in your design or at least consider it. You've got to give the eye visual breaks or places to rest in a layout. I'm rarely cramming something full of design. I think you need some empty spots to balance everything out and make it feel right. And the last part of figuring out how to communicate clearly is group messages together. So, when you're getting all of that information from your client of what information needs to be on that principal display panel, look at it and group like things together. Group all the product information together, group all of your claims together. So, that grouping really helps the visual stopping points of where you're asking the buyer to look at and where you're asking them to read. So, again, we talked about getting attention multiple times, but here's some tips around that. So, in order to get attention, consider using scale. I think especially package design, and likes these really kind of bold moves. Think about things really large and bleeding off the edge or completely inverse of that. Think of going smaller and giving things a lot of room to breathe and maybe that sets you apart. So, another way we get attention is with the use of color. So, consider color. If everything's really, really colorful and bold, maybe you take color in a completely different direction that's more monochromatic, or maybe you're using really pops of color, or maybe you're figuring out how to color block, like some of those earlier samples we looked at where we're like owning a color and blocking it out on the shelf altogether. That's a great way of getting attention. Another way to get attention is just to stand back from your product shelf space and to take it all in. Then, to figure out very deliberate ways you can move, that would be like in a completely different opposite direction. The last thing here is you can consider doing different finishing options. If it's right for the product, maybe you're doing a foil stamp or some sort of finishing technique, or maybe if it's printed matte you're doing, you know, hit a varnish. So, definitely, you could take those things into consideration when you're thinking about package design. The next thing we need to make sure our designs do is they've got to feel cohesive. There's a ton of elements that we're trying to squeeze into this tiny amount of real estate. Whenever we're done with, it needs to, of course, be pleasing to the eye and it just needs to all flow together nicely. So, one way we can create this cohesion is we can stick to a brand direction. I'm picking out a color palette, and I'm picking out like a family of fonts and I'm committing to those and sticking with them. Just making things consistent. Obviously, makes them feel like they all go together and makes it feel cohesive. Another way we can do this is by just creating balance in our layouts. So, I don't necessarily think that you need symmetrical balance or anything like that, but I think it can be completely asymmetrical. I just think that the overall layout as a whole needs to have a sense of ease and balance and flow. It all just needs to jive together just right. I think balance is really important. Another way we can create this cohesion is we want to look at the entire product line of the entire flavor line. Obviously, we want consistency between all of these items. We want all of their flavor colors to feel like they all go together and form a nice color palette. We obviously want the layouts from each package to everything goes in the same place. Finally, a package design like we've really, really got a plan for product expansion. Even if we're only working on one flavor at that time, we've always got to see what the future looks like. So some tips around this are, consider your clients short-term and long-term goals. You've always got to be asking for those at the beginning so that you can design in a way that you're completely setting them up to achieve those. Another thing that I've found to really help when planning for product expansion is you need to account for all the flavors when you're starting and for the design process. So, if I am working on a product and I know it's going to expand, so let's say, six different flavors. I'm looking at all those flavor names and what those flavors are made up of. So, if I'm looking at all their names, I'm looking at literally how long the names are. Is one of them really short, and one of them is really, really long? And the design needs to accommodate for this kind of changes between flavors. Another thing is paying attention to the ingredients. So, if I want to propose an option that highlights the ingredients of a product, you want to make sure you know what the whole product looks like to make sure you can do that across the board. In some instances, one product might have really good ingredients that you can show easily, but then another product down the road might not have ingredients that are so easy to show. So, you just want to take everything into account whenever you're setting up that initial design. So, another tip here is when you're designing to think template. I know template has an awful connotation, I don't like that word. But in packaging design, it's more about getting a structure in place that you can build a product line off of. You want to think about elements and how they're being consistent from flavor to flavor and product line to product line, in like what items are changing from each one. So, you want to think about getting this structure in place that's going to work for the entire line. The last thing here is just to make sure that your flavor differentiation, and if you're sending it to different products to, that it's very, very obvious. As I've mentioned before, that chauffeur doesn't really like to have to think or figure much out, so you really need to make those differences extremely obvious. So, the last thing we need to really make sure our package design stay, and it's really, really important; they need to connect. We've got to figure out as designers how to make these connections with the audience because, ultimately, that's how we're going to get noticed, and that's how we're going to get brand loyalty and that's how we're going to get them to buy the products. So, one thing you can do is you can try adding like human design elements to your work. So, what I would call human design elements is I would say that that would be like hand lettering, or going back to your edges or lines and adding like a really slight brush stroke, or drawing them yourself so that you get this hand-crafted type appeal. Another thing you can do is get to the end of the design and layering textures so that you get this nice richness and depth. Other feminine design element, I always love like a stamp or using a signature in some way. These are all things that make the work feel a little bit more approachable, a little bit more honest and hand-crafted and human. Another way we can build connections is; is there a story to be told what the product? Stories are great for building connections with people. Or is there a personality that you can bring in, or a specific voice that might be really appropriate for your brand. So, finally, we just need to be really sure that when we're creating these package designs and establishing a brand as a whole, that it's really distinctive and really different in that shelf space. I think the more different and distinctive you can make it, the more you're setting that product and that client up to completely own that brand space and to just be really easy to recognize and to allow the consumer to really connect with that. Now, of course, you've got a balance being different. The design always sees the feel familiar. I think it always is to feel like what the product does itself. But within that, I think there's a lot of room to completely differentiate and be really distinctive. If we can figure out how to create designs that really connects with our buyers, then that's how we really become memorable to them. Being memorable normally means success for the product, and ultimately means success for our clients, which is completely our goal at the end of the day. So, that completely wraps up my series of classes on Package Design. I really hope that you've learned a thing or two, or three, and that you come to enjoy this format of design as much as I have.